The Race Relations Commissioner has called on organisers of a basketball tournament to allow a teenage girls’ team to play after they were refused entry because their coach wasn’t Maori.

Basketball coach Andrew McKay said it was unfair to his under 17s team who were barred from this week’s National Maori Basketball Tournament after a rule change meant even coaches and management had to be Maori to enter.

Mr McKay coached a Ngati Whakaue team which won the under-15 division at last year’s tournament in Rotorua.

But his application in October to enter the same team in the under-17 grade for this week’s competition, which starts today, was initially declined by the organisers because he was non-Maori.

A clause that all coaching and management personnel must provide whakapapa to an iwi — or state tribal links — was added to the online entry forms after he had applied, he said. Read more »

The SPCA has distanced itself from claims by one of its officials who linked dog attacks to the owner’s ethnicity.

Auckland SPCA head Bob Kerridge said Â people of some ethnicities had no idea of their responsibilities and “don’t care”.

But his boss, Royal New Zealand Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals chief executive Ric Odom, said responsible dog ownership was not a matter of race.

“Bob’s comments are his personal views and do not reflect the views of the SPCA,” Odom said.

“We proudly work with anyone who shares our common vision and would be horrified if Mr Kerridge’s comments led anyone to think that his personal views on ethnicity were shared by the SPCA.

“They are not.”

The SPCA believed responsible dog ownership was something every dog owner should practice regardless of their ethnicity or socio-economic status.

Weasel words. Â Of course it is what peopleÂ should do. Â But Bob was observing what is happening now. Â And is it really such a surprise that the same area where they back over kids in the driveway with monotonous regularity, the pets come of third best? Â Read more »

THE parallel moral universe inhabited by Europeâs chattering classes and celebs was starkly Â­exposed last week.

In Paris, shortly after the Charlie Hebdo massacre, an extremist stormed a kosher store, terrorised its patrons, and murdered four of them. Their crime? Jewishness.

And yet as this act of anti-Semitic barbarism was taking place, what were the opinion-forming set and the right-on glitterati worrying their well-groomed heads about? Islamophobia. The possibility of post-Charlie Hebdo violence against Muslims.

They fretted over violence that hadnât occurred, rather than violence unfolding before the worldâs eyes in a store frequented by Jews.

So we had the bizarre spectacle of British newspapers thundering about a possible outburst of anti-Muslim madness at precisely the moment an outburst of anti-Â­Semitic madness was taking place. Beware âIslamophobes seizing [the Charlie Hebdo] atrocity to advance their hatredâ, hollered The Guardian as an anti-Semite was seizing a kosher shop to advance the worldâs oldest hatred.

The day after the assault on the kosher store, three of the top 10 most-read articles onThe Guardianâs website were dire warnings about potential Islamophobic violence post-Charlie Hebdo. Some folk seemed more concerned about possible attacks on Muslims than they were about actual Â­attacks on Jews.

This is getting better and better. Â Apparently, the idiots flooding in from all over the world to assist ISIS with making the perfect Islamic state aren’t up to scratch, and the locals are executingÂ them for falling short of the mark.

ISIS âmilitary policeâ executed 100 foreign fighters who attempted to quit and flee from the insurgentsâ de-facto capital of Raqqa in northern Syria as frustration among militants has been growing, a UK newspaper reported citing a witness activist.

âLocal fighters are frustrated â they feel theyâre doing most of the work and the dyingâ.â.â.âforeign fighters who thought they were on an adventure are now exhausted,â

The Jihadi tourists are trying to get out of the country. Â Apparently the actual fighting, killing and dying isn’t as much fun as they thought. Â Their hosts aren’t impressed.

The activist said he had “verified 100 executions of foreign ISIS fighters trying to flee the northern Syrian city of Raqqa.â

The media reported that the insurgents created a âmilitary police to crack downâ on those unwilling to serve the so-called Islamic State.

According to the report, foreign militants have often been the most active in major battles, but most of the demands are put on local fighters.

âThey feel they are the ones going to die in big numbers on the battlefield but they donât enjoy any of the foreignersâ benefits â high salaries, a comfortable life, female slaves,â the activist from Deir Ezzor said.

And guess what the other problem is? Â The Islamic brotherhood aren’t capable of seeing each other as brothers of Islam – instead they see inferior and superior races.

Another problem in the ISIS ranks is growing tensions between fighters of different ethnic groups, the report says.

âMany fighters apparently group themselves by ethnicity or nationality â a practice which undermines ISISâs claim to be ridding Muslims of national borders,â The Financial Times reported.

Anyone who wants to go and fight for ISIS immediately qualifies themselves as batshit insane. Â The fact some woke up to the realities of ISIS life and tried to desert is no surprise. Â I can’t feel too sad for them getting executed for trying to run away.

The question: Â What is the difference between a Muslim woman wearing a hijab and an Exclusive Breatheren woman wearing a head scarf?

Amy Cronin, misses the point:

“Are you hiding bombs in your skirts?” a stranger yelled from a car window as 12-year-old Radiya Ali walked down a Hamilton street in the mid-2000s. She had arrived to New Zealand as a refugee from Yemen, four years after 9/11 – an innocent among hicks and alarmists who saw young girls wearing the hijab and thought it stood for terrorist.

“Did you steal those curtains you wear?” people hollered at her as they passed. “Why are you wearing sheets on your head?”

Salma Salat came from Kenya 17 years ago, when she was 4.

“I don’t remember it, but my mum found it tough adjusting and raising kids in a time when people were shouting things out from the streets.”

In the days post 9/11, a man approached Salma as she was walking with her sister. She remembers him yelling at them, “terrorists”. She was 7 and didn’t know what it meant.

Radiya and Salma are 21 now, and they are friends. They tell these stories with wide eyes, in the can you believe it way adults recall their traumas from childhood. You won’t find gentler, or stronger, young women. They are innocent in many ways, but they have seen.

Yes, well. Â Hamilton. Â The culturally sensitive ground zero of the North Island. Â And yes, as people, we aren’t too flash at coping with what makes us different.

So that sets the scene for this article, which is utlimately about the hijab. Read more »

Before it was synonymous with hippies, peace and love, one infamous VW Combi van was riding across America to brazenly spread a message of hate. Pictured at a gas station in 1961 by LIFE photographer Joe Scherschelthe iconic vintage vehicle suddenly loses its charm âŠLincoln Rockwell is pictured above, third from the left, amongst this sad group of men.